Dawn Pucci remembers the first time she met Dawn Glavick on the beach at Ala Spit.

It was the sort of introduction you don’t forget.

“She said, ‘I hope you guys know what you’re doing,’” Pucci recalled. “‘I support what you’re doing, but don’t screw up my beach.’”

Pucci shared the story with a smile on her face on a boat full of invited guests on hand to partake in a watershed tour of beach restoration projects on North Whidbey last week.

The tour was coordinated by Pucci and Lori Clark with the Island County Department of Natural Resources as an opportunity to offer an up-close look at recently completed projects, discuss their merits and thank those involved in making the restorations possible.

Among the guests who wanted to attend and speak was Glavick, a nearby resident of Ala Spit County Park for the past 20 years.

She talked as the Deception Pass Tours catamaran-style jet boat drifted not far from the controversial spit’s beach restoration that was completed in September, 2015.

Nearly 1,000 feet of cement bulkhead, riprap and large boulders were removed and replaced by more of a natural beach of sand, gravel and cobble.

Forage fish eggs were found in the sand three months later.

“This place means a lot,” Glavick said. “I’ve seen more life just since the year that you did this. More blue heron are back. I see them more because they’re able to find all these little fish now in the sand. And the eagles … I have two that follow me every day. They fish right out here.”

Nearly 30 people attended the April 29 boat tour, including state, federal, tribal and county representatives as well as from nonprofits.

State Senator Barbara Bailey, who lives near Ala Spit, and State Representative Dave Hayes also took the tour to get a closer look at what state funding has helped support.

The first shoreline improvement examined was at Cornet Bay inside Deception Pass State Park, where nearly 1,400 feet of creosote bulkhead was removed in favor of a naturally sloping sand and gravel beach.

“Any time you can go and see for yourself the project or impact that an expenditure of the state is going to have on a local community … it just gives you a different feeling,” Bailey said.

“It gives me a first-hand impression of why these investments are necessary,” Hayes said. “If I have somebody just testifying to me and showing me pictures at a committee hearing down in Olympia, I still don’t get the full perspective of why it’s necessary.”

The perspective was vivid for most.

County commissioner Rick Hannold said the view from the water looking in not only offered a different view, but confirmed his previously held beliefs.

“We’ve got a beautiful island,” Hannold said. “When you look at it from that perspective from out on the water, it’s just flat gorgeous. It’s totally different. It’s a magical world.

“Sometimes, I’m skeptical about some of the projects. I was telling somebody else, Ala Spit, years ago, I was like, ‘Why are we doing this?’ Now you see. It’s good to see a success story.”

Hugh Shipman of the state Department of Ecology said he often hears and understands concerns from the public about shoreline projects and people’s tendency to be resistant to change, but has yet to hear someone complain about the results.

“I don’t know of a situation where after these projects were done, they wish we hadn’t done that,” he said.

Most spoke about how it takes collaborative efforts by several entities to make such shoreline improvements possible.

And although the projects are designed to improve habitat for insects and forage fish that benefit salmon, there was plenty of talk about the importance of the economic and recreational benefits to humans as well.

Bailey said she has frequented Ala Spit during salmon season with a rod and reel and knows how important that stretch of beach is to anglers.

“It’s been enhanced,” she said. “It’s even better than it was.”

The Northwest Straits Foundation is sponsoring a project to remove 1,500 feet of armor made of rocks, concrete, planks and tires that was intended to serve as an artificial barrier to control erosion at Maylor Point on the Seaplane Base at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island. The Navy is among the partners in the armor removal project.

As the tour came to a stop at the Oak Harbor Marina, discussion centered on the idea of rock removal and improving the beach at the marina for better public access to the water. Council member Tara Hizon said she was very supportive of the idea.

Others who attended the tour included county commissioner Helen Price Johnson and Tulalip Tribes elder Terry Williams.

“I think we really just wanted to show how important it is that it takes many different partners, many different funding sources and a lot of communication to really make these projects happen,” said Lisa Kaufman of the Northwest Straits Foundation.

And, as far as the tour happening, some heavy jackets provided by the boat operators made the experience all the more comfortable.

“I’m glad they gave us the suits,” Hayes said. “We would have miserable out there without them.”